Winterport Resident Concerned about Upcoming Central Maine Power Service Interruption

Winterport residents will have an interruption in their electric service early Saturday morning.One resident has a few concerns over the length of time he will be without power.Meghan Hayward has the story.Tracy Demmons of Winterport received a postcard from Central Maine Power in the mail earlier this week, informing him about an interruption in electric service for seven hours.Demmons had some concerns.”Is it really a smart idea to do this where it’s dropping during the night below freezing.”Demmons is also worried about his mother, who relies on an oxygen tank that requires power.He called CMP and says he was told he should have back up tanks for his mother.”Well their back-ups don’t really last that long and they said, well they should have more.”CMP spokesman John Carroll says they hope it won’t take the entire seven hours, but the work needs to be done.”We have some equipment that we need to take up service so we can do some work in a substation that will improve the strength and reliability of operations there.”Carroll says they’re required to notify residents in advance of a service interruption.”So in this case everyone received postcards several days ago now. We also put a notice in the newspaper so that everyone would have time to prepare and if they needed, to make other plans to ensure they have power for their equipment.”Demmons says they were able to get extra tanks for his mother, but he still doesn’t feel he was treated with respect.”I work customer service myself, but just not a whole lot of compassion in the time that they were giving.”Carroll says it’s important for residents to realize power can go out at any time for extended periods.”All of our customers I think understand that they need to have a back-up plan for if the power goes out. That’s especially important for people with medical equipment and it’s their responsibility and we hope they understand it.”Over 5,000 customers in Winterport, Belfast, Frankfort, Hampden, Monroe, Prospect, Searsport, and Stockton Springs will be affected by the service interruption.Which will start at 1 am this Saturday and power is expected to be restored no later than 6 am.